Decision makers

Tell Obama We Need Independent Review of Nuclear Safety at Indian Point & All Operating Reactors

A New York Times article by Norimitsu Onishi and Ken Belson highlights the role that the culture of complicity by regulators played in making the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant vulnerable to the natural disaster that struck Japan on March 11. This comes on the heels of a string of news reports detailing the systematic failure of the NRC to strictly regulate the nuclear industry, including the announcement that high levels of radiation were recorded at a nuclear reactor in northeast Ohio, prompting the temporary evacuation of workers from the area. The NRC has not said how high the radiation levels were or how often such inspections occur. We cannot allow the same “culture of complicity” to continue at the NRC.

We are calling on President Obama to immediately take the following actions:

• Establish an independent commission to review nuclear safety and evacuation planning issues at Indian Point and all other operating reactors in the U.S. President Carter did this after Three Mile Island, and President Obama should do it now.

• Call on the NRC to immediately suspend all license renewal proceedings pending the independent commission’s recommendations, and allow the commission’s findings to be fed into the relicensing hearing process for Indian Point and other plants under review.

We cannot afford to sit by and watch as the NRC conducts another “business as usual” review and refuses to address the public’s concerns about these critical issues.

Take action today! Our strength in numbers will help break the NRC’s stranglehold on deciding the future of Indian Point, and ensure the truly independent review that we so desperately need.

Since the Fukushima nuclear disaster began to unfold on March 11, we have learned that Indian Point tops the list of nuclear plants for earthquake risk, and heard the NRC tell Americans in Japan to evacuate 50 miles away from the crippled Fukushima reactors while allowing U.S. reactors, including Indian Point, to continue operating with only 10 mile evacuation plans in place. 300, 000 people live within 10 miles of IP, and 20 million within 50 miles! According to former FEMA director James Lee Witt, the 10 mile evacuation plan won’t protect the public at Indian Point. Trying to evacuate millions of people is pure fantasy.

We have also learned that the NRC has given Entergy numerous exemptions to critical fire safety regulations at Indian Point, so many that a NRC spokesman claimed “we can’t possibly keep count of how many we’ve granted.”

To add insult to injury, the NRC refuses to address the risk posed by spent fuel pools packed with toxic nuclear waste, despite evidence from Fukushima that the nuclear waste pools there released huge amounts of radiation into the environment.

Last but not least, the NRC will not allow any of these critical issues to be heard in the upcoming relicensing hearings for Indian Point beginning this fall. Instead, the agency wants us to believe its “regular oversight” will address these issues.

Clearly the NRC cannot be trusted to apply the lessons learned from Fukushima to nuclear safety here in the U.S., and especially at Indian Point. We need a comprehensive, independent review of these critical issues and prompt action taken to protect our communities from the risk of Indian Point.

We urge you to immediately take the following actions:

• Establish an independent commission to review nuclear safety and evacuation planning issues at Indian Point and all other operating reactors in the U.S. President Carter did this after Three Mile Island, and President Obama should do it now.• Call on the NRC to immediately suspend all license renewal proceedings pending the independent commission’s recommendations, and allow the commission’s findings to be fed into the relicensing hearing process for Indian Point and other plants under review.

We cannot afford to sit by and watch as the NRC conducts another “business as usual” review and refuses to address the public’s concerns about these critical issues.

If acted upon now, these are measures that can help protect millions of lives.